Ask Lemmy

Cameras. You can take pictures with your phone, but despite Apple's advertisements, a phone camera will never produce anywhere near the same quality a dedicated digital camera with interchangeable lenses. And neither are as good as film.

Flashlights. Again, in an emergency, you can use your phone. But it's not as good as a real flashlight, and I always carry and use a flashlight.

A Vibrator.

I can't vape weed with my phone yet.

I'm posting these separately so people can argue about specific devices.

A calculator is still better than a phone in a lot of cases. I haven't yet met a financial advisor who uses their phone instead of a calculator. It's often the same issue as with keyboards: touch screens are simply vastly inferior to tactile keys. Few people are willing to carry keyboards around with them, but for those who use calculators a lot, for many it's worth having a portable, dedicated device.

Video games. At least for me. Mobile games suck.

Radiation detectors. Such as the Radiacode or the Open Gamma Detector.

Binoculars are quite portable, very useful, and phones don't do a good job at zooming in like that.

Smart watches integrate with phones but the phones by themselves are not so good at measuring the heart rate and other parameters directly.

Mini projectors. UV flashlights. Tools in general... There is so much actually. What type of gadgets are you looking for?

Pocket knife. Although I wouldn't be surprised if there's a phone case out there with a box-knife-like insert for a razor blade.

...infact, brb.

Hi-fi audio recorders with builtin microphones. As a bass player, I deeply resent phone mics and speakers.

I was just thinking this morning that it's kinda odd that there's no cell phone that also doubles as a multi-meter for measuring electronic current. I guess it's because in theory you'd need to also carry around a set of probes with you?

Handheld Radios, some are those "Walkie-Talkies" (I hate that term btw), others are VHF/UHF Ham Radios, or GMRS/FRS, MURS, or Meshtastic (I don't even know how those meshtastic things work). AFIAK, phones cannot fit those antennas in such a thin build, so they won't be replaced for a long time, possibly forever. I mean, there is no way to cram such antenna in there. There might be some phones that are also handheld radios, but those are probably so niche, that I've never heard of any such thing.

Very useful in like a natural disaster and the cell towers are down. (Or just something like war where the commucation infrastructure is just shut down by the destruction).

Idk about other countries, but in the USA, those walmart/target walkie talkies do not need any license, because they are just FRS radios that use FRS frequencies. AFIAK MURS and Meshtastic also is license free. Ham and GMRS will probably require licenses in many jurisdictions. Some GMRS and FRS frequencies overlap, but GMRS can (legally) use more power, and can swap antennas, which FRS radios cannot (not legally).

Baofeng radios are cheap and its only like $50 or so for a pack of two. They are supposed to be either Ham or GMRS versions, but apparantly I have those "Ham Radios" that can do both which is gonna make the FCC sad 👀

If you have a repeater in your area that your signal can reach, you can talk a long distance throughout your neighborhood.

Both Ham and GMRS require a license in the USA, but GMRS license does not require a test, which Ham license do. GMRS license is literally just a payment for a paper.

Even if you use a radio without a license, most of the time, nothing will happen. The FCC (at least, before 2025) wont care if you talk to your friends using radio without a license. And FCC rules don't apply during an emergency.

(I mostly learned these things via looking around the internet in the past few months because I was interested in the topic of "off grid" communications. I don't have any licenses yet 😅)

Another light-emitting device: laser pointer. I don't know of a phone that comes with an LED laser; it's probably only a matter of time, but even then it'll probably be - like a lot of other things - a handy-to-have-in-an-emergency app, but not a practical substitute for a real laser.

In these responses I tend to omit obvious items that have no digital component unless there's an app that can function as the non-digital item. So, no knives or multi-tools.

Along with the mirror, tape measures fall into this category. I've tried several digital length-measuring apps, but none provide and accuracy that I'd rely on. I do, however, own a laser measure about the size of a Bic lighter that is extremely accurate; it's digital, portable, and accurate, so I think it counts.

Even that laser measure isn't good enough to replace a real, physical measure for detail work, but apps can replace neither except in an emergency, and even then are useless except for coarse-grained measurements.

While it's not an electronic device, my wife says makeup mirrors. Yes, you can reverse the camera and use your phone as a mirror, but she says it's not as good as a real mirror.

• A pocket notebook and a ballpoint pen, for quick note taking. Edit: add to that a pocket watercolor set and a brush, for quick sketching
• A pocket book, for on the go reading
• My (mechanical) wrist watch

I don't care if the smartphone can be used to take notes, to read and has an extra precise clock. I much prefer my analog tools. They don't require upgrade, they don't need recharging, no one will ever try to stole them (my watch is not fancy at all, it's just mechanical ;) and, well, I prefer using those.

I'll answer my own question, "Fans". You can absolutely buy a small fan or even one you can wear, but a smart phone can't blow air to cool a person down.